Suns are making a Nick Richards realization that Hornets fans know too well

Despite failing to add Jimmy Butler to their roster at the trade deadline, the Phoenix Suns did address their biggest problem area on the roster weeks prior by adding a legitimate center in Nick Richards. The former Charlotte Hornets player wasting little time in starting for his new team, and playing with the type of energy and hustle badly missing for much of the season.

The Hornets would wind up being even more helpful down the road after they took Jusuf Nurkic off their hands as well, although it did cost the Suns a future first round pick to ditch a player who next season would be an expiring contract anyway. Perhaps not the home-run deal it looked to be in the moment.

The Suns' now realize what they have in Richards, and it is limited.

Although Richards has been a nice addition to The Valley, the reality is the Suns are an organization in the second apron and he was as good as they were ever going to get at the deadline. What that has gotten them is a 27-year-old big who was the backup center for the Hornets, and who started 74 games across five seasons in Charlotte.

Richards has never appeared in the postseason, and this campaign has served as the backup to Mark Williams. You know, the same center who the Los Angeles Lakers traded for to solve their own big man woes, only to send him back after failing a medical. To this point Richards is averaging 8.8 points and just over 10 boards per game, and the Suns have needed all those rebounds especially.

But this is about what he was giving a Hornets roster that was going nowhere - and there has been no great leap from him to this point - despite having much better teammates. There might be more space for Richards to operate in than ever before - but with the Suns hardly a defensive beast - he's having to work as hard as ever on that end as well.

Which is why the Suns are still fighting just to make the play-in tournament in the Western Conference. That was before Richards hurt his knee in a recent loss to the Denver Nuggets, although he did end up playing 22 minutes in that game. Yes he's an upgrade over Nurkic - but given that he had been permanently benched - the only way to go here was up.

If anything Nurkic was more capable of having bigger scoring and rebounding nights, although those days did look far behind him by the time head coach Mike Budenholzer had decided to sit him entirely. The point here though is that if Richards is the biggest trade they made at the deadline - and he was - then there is only so far this team is going to go in the coming months.

He doesn't fundamentally change their core, while if anything he is being asked to do more than Nurkic ever was because he has that athleticism that the Bosnian does not. Since the Richards trade, the team sits a lowly 21st in defensive rating, conceding 117.2 points per game. For the season as a whole? They're 25th, although they've given up less points (115.7).

Given that Richards is only averaging 23.8 minutes per night, you begin to see why. That is the same amount of time Nurkic was getting prior to being ditched. That's worrying. Despite being given the chance to impress and win more minutes, Richards to this point has failed to do so. It's almost as if trading for a backup big from a rebuilding organization can only do so much for your title aspirations.